News about Iran • Israel

Iran's current government does not recognize Israel's legitimacy as a state and has called for its destruction; it views Palestine as the sole legitimate government of the historic Palestinian territories.

The United States attributes the worsening of relations to the 1979–81 Iran hostage crisis, Iran's repeated human rights abuses since the Islamic Revolution, different restrictions on using spy methods on democratic revolutions by the US, its anti-Western ideology and its nuclear program.

Israel launched a military attack on Iran on June 13 targeting the nation's nuclear enrichment program and killing several senior leaders. Iran retaliated with strikes of its own, and the two countries have been trading attacks since.